Look out! He's got a knife!

We got the drugs

Okay, serious issue time. Let's talk about drugs.

Who here knows about the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs? The EACD? They advise the Minister of Health - Jim Anderton to you - on which drugs should have which classifications.

There are three different classes for illegal drugs: Class A, Class B and Class C. Class A are the drugs considered the worst, Class C are considered the least-worst. More information on this can be found here. The importation, manufacture or supply of Class A drugs can get you life imprisonment. If it's class B you can get up to 14 years, class C it's up to 8 years.

There's a move right now to move "legal high" drugs up to illegal status, probably to Class C. I believe that they started looking at them on the 19th of March (so almost a week ago now). These are substances you can currently buy across the counter, and which are relatively safe when compared to things like alcohol and tobacco, and certainly without the addictive potential of those.

You might be thinking, "Is this a problem? Why should I care?" Well here's a reason for you: putting these substances into Class C is claiming that they "pose a moderate risk of harm". Which would not be true. The people who use these substances know that this is the case, and the classifications lose credibility. Which means that when a seriously dangerous drug comes along, people aren't going to believe governmental health warnings about them.

The EACD does not consult with the public on its decisions. This is one thing when talking about re-classifying illegal drugs - after all you wouldn't expect users of illegal drugs to volunteer themselves. But when you are talking about something which people are using legally, and which businesses are selling legally, there should be a period of consultation before recommending to the Minister that the law be changed.

What's more, the EACD's only method of communicating with the public is via its website. Which you might notice hasn't been updated in almost eighteen months, so there is no way of telling what they are considering, so there is not even the opportunity to approach them.

Once the EACD makes its recommendation to the Minister, if he agrees with their Advice he'll take it to cabinet. If they also agree - and can you imagine the Cabinet wanting to appear soft on drugs and crime, regardless of the quality of the information they receive? - they'll draft an Order and get the Governer General to sign it, and then it goes on the the Select Committee, who'll give it a cursory once-over during the 28 days they have (during which time their opinion will be divided, as they'll be looking at a heap of other Orders) and send it off to Parliament for approval. 28 days after this, it comes into force - easy.

That's just under 2 months from the EACD making their recommendation to it being enforced, during which time there is no public consultation. The first that businesses will be aware that products they are selling are about to become illegal, is when it becomes illegal. Regardless of how much they already have on the shelf, or on order, or being manufactured.

Can anyone else see a problem here?

There is also a push to make E - that would be Ecstasy - a Class A drug. A Little Bird Who Would Know told me last year that there have been three E-related deaths in New Zealand; one of these was due to dehydration, another was due to drinking TOO MUCH water, and the third was a passenger in a car wreck (!) - so two are down to people having bad information on how to deal with it (hardly surprising when it's illegal) and the third isn't related to the drug at all (apparently it was the passenger who was on E, not the driver).

The only study that has proven that there is any neurological damage caused by E was somewhat flawed - because of mislabelling, they accidentally dosed chimps with P instead of E. Whoops. The only confirmed problems you can run into with E are dehydration (easily solved with a little water) and long-term use can result in depression. And trust me when I say that it's not addictive - it really isn't.

According to New Scientist magazine there were 27 E-related deaths worldwide in 2000, 19 of which involved poly drug use (that's when you use more than one drug at once, children). How does that compare with, say alcohol-related deaths? Tobacco-related deaths? Shit, how does it compare with Prozac-related deaths?

I have also been told by Someone Who Knows that this change is not due to medical or scientific evidence, but because "the police want it" - I'd be nasty to say "is this the same police currently accused of gang-rape, planting evidence, and beating confessions out of suspects?" so I guess I'm nasty.

So this drug is going to be placed in the same category as heroin and crack cocaine. Why? Christ only knows, because people want to take it I guess. And once again no public consultation, and it could all be pushed through in less than two months without anyone involved breaking a sweat.

The Health Select Committee considers that leaving Consulation until the law changes to be unacceptable - funny that. They say that there should be an opportunity for input at the earlist possible stages when changes to the current status quo of laws are considered. This ain't happening, folks.

So who is the EACD that they have this power? They've got a consumer rep. Who exactly is he? Who is he accountable to? Who are the rest of them, and who are THEY accountable to? They're all classified as "experts" but what qualifies them to advise on law changes without public consultation? There are names on the website, but since it hasn't been updated since October 2002, how do we know if it's even the same people?

Russell Brown makes some great points about the EACD's credibility over here. You should be reading Brown's blog anyway, it's some great stuff.

Fuck it, I'm done for now. Someone argue with me. But for God's sake know what you're talking about first.

Posted by pearce at March 24, 2004 8:23 PM